After the USSR launched its first Earth Satellite in 1957 and thereby opened the space age, the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), now the International Council for Science, established its Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) during an international meeting in London in 1958. COSPAR’s first Space Science Symposium was organized in Nice, France in January 1960.

COSPAR’s objectives are to promote scientific research in space, with emphasis on the exchange of results, information and opinions, and to provide a forum, open to all scientists, for the discussion of problems that may affect scientific space research. These objectives are achieved through the organization of Scientific Assemblies, publications and other means.

Dr Rasool became a member of Working Group 6 (Application of Space Techniques to Meteorology and Earth Surveys) in 1965. He was elected Chair of the Interdisciplinary Scientific Commission A (Space Studies of the Earth’s surface, meteorology and climate) in 1979 for a first term of 4 years, extended to 1984, and then a second term until 1988.

Dr Rasool recieved the COSPAR WILLIAM NORDBERG MEDAL in 1988. This medal commemorates the work of the late William Nordberg and is awarded to a scientist who has made a distinguished contribution to the application of space science in a field covered by COSPAR.

Dr Rasool received a one year fellowship, extendable for three years, to work with Dr. R. Jastrow in 1961.

The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Earth Science Division, which is part of GSFC’s Sciences and Exploration Directorate. Following approval by NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan in December 1960, the institute was established by Dr. Robert Jastrow in May 1961 as a New York City office of GSFC’s Theoretical Division to do basic research in space sciences in support of Goddard programs. Much of the institute’s early work involved study of planetary atmospheres using data collected by telescopes and space probes, and in time that led to GISS becoming a leading center of atmospheric modeling and of climate change.

The mission of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) is to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education. They investigate the most challenging, fundamental problems in science and technology in a singularly collegial, interdisciplinary atmosphere, while educating outstanding students to become creative members of society.

With an outstanding faculty, including five Nobel laureates, and such off-campus facilities as the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the W.M. Keck and Palomar observatories, the California Institute of Technology is one of the world’s preeminent institutions of science and engineering.

Ichtiaque Rasool was a distinguished visiting Scientist at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a visiting associate in planetary science on the campus.